Blank??

i was leaving this blank to write stuff. Only I can't remember what? Perhaps some scribbles from my book while taking the train from Brighton to Victoria Stn London? ...

i looked out the window for much of the trip. What struck me were the rows of endless houses between the fields. Like ripples on an ocean, hundreds of English houses stretch out before me. Each as unique as it's identical neighbour. Yet in their un-uniqueness, they succeed in making London unique. They seem overpowering and yet next moment are gone. Replaced by endless fields of the farmer.

The oasis in a desert. The green park in London city. I can't help but smile at the thought of what these parks mean. For dogs free of leash. For small kids on their bikes. For teenagers, freeing their minds momentarily from study. For old couples, contemplating life gone by.

Each sight we passed had a thousand sights within. A horse seen tied to a tree. Free yet trapped in it's freedom. Is it right for us to keep animals as pets if we deny them their natural desires? If for however short that time might be?

Sometimes they seem to take the freedom from themselves. A cat seen up a tree. A haven from a foe? Or the foe itself? trapped in a wall less cell. I often wonder how long those cats in movies would stay up the tree if the fireman didn't come along. I imagine until they got hungry to be honest.

A bird seen in a tree. A nest a few branches up. Together a life? Or just a passing moment? A coincidence. So much of life is made up from coincidence. If I was to walk out of this library this moment and strike up conversation with the first person I saw, my life would be changed forever.

If I was to leave now and start walking with no goal in mind. Where would I end up? What would happend to me? What would my current couch surfing host think? And what about my gear? My backpack - my companion, my house, my life, but never my home. Always home is with mum and dad. I have lived in a number of places now. I have lived for months in flats too while at uni. And yet have always called our house in rotorua home. Will this change when I settle for good in a few years time?

Finding that home was always with mum and dad hed me to thinking how we can keep in touch so easily these days. Is this a good thing? I'll never travel as free as my dad did when he backpacked the world. I sometimes wish I could be truly independent. No internet, no phone, no communication. Cut off from everyone. Independent.

Or would I get lonely? A man in a purple coat stands astride a log in a field. His puropse? We pass by in a train sent for another city. Never to know. Only to guess. Thrown to the wind, we don't truly expect an answer.

Contemplating lonliness, i was broken free of my thoughts by a young kid loudly quizzing, or perhaps teaching, his father. "Anyone can use these toilets", cried the small boy at the end of the train carriage, "Babies, growd ups, babies, even bag ladies. Anyone can use these toilets daddy".

Drunk to forget the past.
Drunk to escape the present.
Drunk to deny the future.